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Thursday, July 8, 2010

84% of mobile broadband customers have had Quality of Service issues

Research carried out for mobile data company Acision has revealed that most UK consumers have experienced Quality of Service issues. 84% of respondents – people who either use mobile broadband on a portable computer or via their phone – said they'd had problems. Slow speeds had affected 67% of consumers, while 49% had suffered from poor network coverage. In addition, 45% hadn't been able to connect and 40% had lost connection at some point.

Steven van Zanen, Acision's senior vice president marketing for mobile broadband, said "When reviewing the research, we identified three key areas where operators can deploy capabilities to raise QoS levels. The first one is defining fairness. When asked about the contentious issue of fair usage policies, 56% of research respondents were not aware if their operator had a fair usage policy in place and 71% were unaware that in many networks, 5% of users generate over 80 per cent of broadband traffic, causing slow download speeds and connection problems for all users. However, once aware of the issues surrounding the fair distribution of bandwidth, consumers responded positively to the option of allowing sophisticated fairness policies if this helped to improve the overall service."

Marek Vaygelt, head of consumer, technology and telecoms consulting at YouGov – the company that carried out the research – said "Mobile broadband is a frequent topic of debate with UK consumers. Mobile broadband growth has been faster than its fixed-line counterpart, with usage increasing rapidly over the last few years. However, user habits have also changed with more focus on video and downloading data than simple web browsing. The research conducted for Acision clearly highlights that many consumers are suffering regular and significant problems with their mobile broadband and can be frustrated with the service they receive. It is also apparent that if approached in the right way, consumers may be open to content adaptation, service differentiation as well as the option of having bandwidth distributed fairly amongst all users to provide a better service."

Opinion Articles

Bye-bye Barcelona, hello Hanover

Mark Bridge writes:

As one show closes, so another show opens.

It’s now more than a week since we bid a sad farewell to Mobile World Congress 2014 – I imagine hotel rooms for 2nd to 5th March 2015 are already being booked – but there’s now CeBIT in Germany to look forward to. Prime Minister David Cameron kicked things off last night with a speech that talked about UK-German partnerships, more funding for research around the ‘Internet of Things’ and the development of 5G technology.

explained by Professor Andrew Nix from the University of Bristol

In this presentation, which was originally given as part of the ‘Multimedia Content Delivery onto Mobile Platforms’ session at Mobile World Congress 2014, Professor Andrew Nix from the University of Bristol explains many of the often-forgotten truths about WiFi service.

If you’re an IT manager, working in a mobile phone shop, looking at tech product design or simply want to get the most from your mobile phone, Professor Nix has plenty of practical advice in this 20-minute video clip.

at Mobile World Congress 2014

James Rosewell writes:

I noticed a new phenomenon at Mobile World Congress this year: Beer O’Clock. Come 5pm Monday through Wednesday, companies with larger booths would break out the Cerveza, Vino, Cava and a small number of Orange juices. All very sociable and fun… until the music started.

Recent Podcasts

Podcast - 15th January 2016

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Podcast - 27th February 2015

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.